wordy produce; ripeness not guaranteed

65% oxygen, so I may inspire
18% carbon, to help me form diamonds
10% hydrogen, to ignite my combustion
3% nitrogen, so I’m a high-protein snack
1.4% calcium, to fortify my chompers
1.1% phosphorus, making me luminous
73% muscle, ’cause I eats me spinach
22% fat, ’cause I scarfs me donuts
3% bone – thank you, calcium!
58% water swelling my ugly bag of skin
patches of hair keeping bits of me warm
a score of shiny nails to dig in the mud
a couple of grimy spirit-windows
two feet that stumble on smooth floors
ten fingers that flounder over keys
a derriere well-adapted to sitting still
a heart like a neodymium magnet
a durable web that binds me to you
a little dog, desperate for approval
a pirate who gives away his booty
a child at storytime, lost in wonder
an octillion of this universe’s molecules
and approximately one of creation’s souls

Lord of Miracles

Oh, you tried,
on the day you wrapped your
gentle, burning arms
around my brother and me.
You reached up, and you held me,
and you pulled my stone
toward yours,
yet still I stand.”

Its sibling to the south says nothing,
its throat and mouth having plunged
to mingle with the jagged tumble
of dark lava-rock
surrounding and permeating
the cathedral that was,
the sacred place that is,
sixty-five years after
God’s hot embrace.

Behind those brothers –
one tall, one reduced
to stubby fingers reaching up,
an open hand to receive the gifts
of the sky – is the chapel
with three walls and no top.
It too is ready
to accept heaven’s favors
even if they descend from above
as a slow avalanche of fire.

Pilgrims fill the chapel –
seekers dressed in yellow and red,
in green as vibrant as the brush
that ekes out life upon this
snaggy, igneous landscape.
They come for the icon enshrined within –
el Señor de los Milagros.

And were there ever miracles here?
Was it love that was raining down
when the people of two towns
lost their homes,
yet thanks to the slow tenderness
of God’s scorching grasp,
not a single soul lost her life?

El Señor hangs upon his tree –
the ruin at which he eventually arrived –
as the women who loved him weep.
He seems to gaze upward
at the similar cross
that sits proudly atop the northern spire.
In the late afternoon sun
the tower’s stone and brick skin is black
and brown, tan and red like flame,
like human flesh.

it’s dark in this stranger-full room
and i’m sharing you with two women not-yet-kate not-yet-erin
who aren’t talking to me
because although this is a sort of church
it won’t be my church for another year

so i stare down at you instead
studying your lavish ornamentation
of gum-wads and peeling/curling stickers
until the indescribable commences uncontainable untameable
and i am beguiled for good

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Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion depicts the subconscious mind as an elephant, with the conscious mind as its rider. The elephant – that great big bundle of emotions, fears, neuroses, cultural conditioning, etc., – is nearly always the one who makes the decisions about where it and its rider actually go, due to its size, its strength, its intelligence, and the fact that it’s the one with its feet on the ground. The rider is then left to come up with “rational” justifications for the decisions made by the elephant, which helps him maintain the illusion that he is actually the one in charge.

He’s not.

Terzanelle of the Elephant

I see you, elephant – you cannot hide.
I know your ways. You want to be unseen.
Between my mindful moments you would slide.

My subjugation’s your banal routine,
but every now and then I catch a flash.
I know your ways. You want to be unseen.

I drive; you tell me, “Probably, you’ll crash.”
I search for courage in a land of fear,
and every now and then I catch a flash.

I see your dominance and shed a tear
for my delusions of autonomy.
I search for courage in a land of fear.

I recognize there is no solid “me”.
I mourn for my belief in virtue, and
for my delusions of autonomy.

I know now – I was never in command.
I see you, elephant. You cannot hide.
My efforts at control are built on sand.
Between my mindful moments you will slide.